Overview

Our gardens are ranked 8th among more than 300 Japanese Gardens outside Japan by the Journal of Japanese Gardening. Visit http://www.rothteien.com/topics/na-survey.htm for more information.

Please click here to view more images of our gardens.

The Morikami Gardens named Roji-en: Garden of the Drops of Dew, The George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Japanese Gardens, were designed to be a living exhibit complementing The Museum.

“The Museum’s mission to promote understanding of the Japanese culture is carried through to the gardens, which illustrate the Japanese approach to nature over the centuries.”

Larry Rosensweig, Past Museum Director

The project includes a series of six diverse gardens, each inspired by a different historical period and type of Japanese garden. This is the only venue in the world to include a sweep of historical garden design, a conceptual theme that is unique to a cultural museum.

While botanical gardens are intended to provide knowledge and information about specific plant species, The Morikami Gardens are authentic Japanese-style gardens. They were intended to be experienced through nature as a whole by becoming in tune with a sense of space and rhythm, light and shade, texture and sound…

We feel that the gardens in their authentic Japanese style add to the quality of life of our visitors and that the presence of plant identification signage would detract from this kind of garden experience.

We invite you to visit us and stroll the garden with an open mind and relaxed senses, with an emphasis on feeling nature, and encourage you to bring your own botanical literature, or peruse some in the Museum Library, should you feel this would add to your enjoyment of the Gardens.